Effective marketing hinges on constant awareness of trends and emerging channels so that you can plan the right marketing mix for your business.

As digital technology continues to barrel forward this year, here are some marketing tips to heed.

Leverage the power of visual marketing

Visuals dominate the internet, from our social media feeds to online advertising. By harnessing the power of visuals you can make your marketing more engaging, exciting and memorable. To break through the noise in the crowded online space, compelling visuals could be your best bet. Powerful graphics, well-designed logo design, interesting video clips and catchy infographics make your brand message stick in the minds of people.

GE (General Electric) is one of the finest examples of presenting products in an innovative way with the use of powerful graphics. If you think you can only come up with interesting images if your product is inherently visual, like fashion or food, then think again.

GE on all it’s social handles including Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook shares stunning pictures of its product in action. With out-of-the-box thinking combined with a great concept, the company has taken the visual marketing to another level.

Blog with expertise

Blogging continues to be an integral part of marketing strategy for every business, whether it’s a startup or a well-established company. When done right, blogging is a great way to reach your target audience and to utilize search engine optimization practices. Regularly posting quality blog posts can increase the visibility of your website greatly by helping you climb up the ladder in the search engine results.

Make sure each blog post targets your industry specific keywords and focusses on your product or service offerings. However, to gain maximum mileage from your blogging efforts, you need to make sure that your content is valuable, informative, and is interesting enough to keep your audience engaged.

There are many B2B companies who are totally killing with blog content, but Contently tops my list.

Contently's blog "The Content Strategist" has witnessed enormous growth and popularity. The blog primarily focuses on providing tips to marketers to help them achieve a maximum response from their content marketing efforts. The blog post topic ranges from social media, retail, finance, B2C and more.

Utilize a dedicated mobile app

It has been predicted that global mobile app downloads will reach a staggering 284 billion by 2020. Global mobile app revenue is predicted to exceed $101 billion by the year 2020.

Do you still think your business can afford to ignore having a dedicated mobile app?

Let’s take a look at the benefits of having a mobile app for your business:

To provide value to your customers- Having an app custom-built for your business helps you in providing more value to your customers. With a dedicated mobile app, you can provide all required information to your customers right at their fingertips. Besides, you have the option to send users push notifications and easily update them about your products, services. Thus, it helps you connect better with your customers.

Build strong brand loyalty- To engage more users with your mobile app, you can introduce loyalty programs within your app. The more customers interact with your product or services, more points they can collect. Customers can see their points adding up in real-time basis within the app rather than sending them details in the mail or until they access your website to check the status of their points manually. Many brands have successfully used this strategy to increase user engagement with their app.

Starbucks is an excellent example of this. The brand has introduced a rewards program exclusively for its app subscribers. This encourages their users to order coffee and snacks by using the app. The brand has taken this to another level by giving an option to users to pay directly from the app, making the whole transaction process swift and simple.

If you already have a dedicated mobile app in place, that's great news. Make sure your mobile app design is user-friendly and has a killer design. If you can come up with an exciting rewards program, you can drive more users to your app, too.

Send interactive emails

If you think email marketing is a thing of past then you need to think again. A recent survey found that the number of email users is estimated to reach a staggering 254.7 million by 2020.

Email marketing has stood the test of time but is in a state of evolution. Interactive emails, as the name suggests, helps you increase interactivity with readers. Interactive emails allow you to give an app or microsite inspired experience within the email itself. To make your emails interactive you can include sliders, navigation bars, accordions, menus, sliders, short videos, animated GIFs, and even shopping carts to enable users to complete a purchase within an email.

Here is an example for some nspiration, courtesty of Neil Patel:

Smart digital marketing is really just about engaging consumers and that means adapting to consumer digital and buying behaviors. The more you catch the attention of your consumers, the better your chance of improving your bottom line.

Alice Jackson is a blogger and digital marketing consultant at crowdsourcing company, Designhill.